A Very Different Sentiment From Curiosity
Employed Our Minds, Though Every Thing We Saw Around Us Was Calculated To
Excite And Gratify That Passion In The Highest Degree.
Our little army did
not exceed four hundred and fifty men, and we had been told at every step
of our march, that we were to be put to death on our arrival in the city
into which we were now about to enter.
That city was everywhere surrounded
by water, and approachable only by long moles or causeways interrupted in
many places by cross cuts, which were only to be passed by means of
bridges, the destruction or removal of any of which would effectually
prevent the possibility of retreat. In these circumstances I may fairly
ask my readers, what men in the world but ourselves would have ventured on
so bold and hazardous an enterprize?
Proceeding along the broad causeway of Iztapalapan, we came to a place
called _Xoloc_, where a smaller causeway goes off obliquely from the great
one to the city of _Cojohuacan_, we were met by a numerous train of the
court nobles in the richest dresses, who were sent before Montezuma to
compliment us on our arrival, after which Cacamatzin and the other nobles
who had hitherto attended us, went to meet their sovereign, who now
approached in a most magnificent litter, which was carried by four of his
highest nobles. When we came near certain towers, almost close to the city,
Montezuma was lifted from his litter, and borne forwards in the arms of
the lords of Tezcuco, Iztapalapan, Tacuba, and Cojohuacan, under a
splendid canopy, richly adorned with gold, precious stones hung round like
fringes, and plumes of green feathers.
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